“They are going away! It’s impossible,” said the brother.
“Is it true?” asked Maria of Stein, who came in.
“She wishes it,” he replied dejectedly.
“That is what her father has always said,” continued Maria; “and with this response he would have let her die, if it had not been for us. Ah! Don Frederico, you are so well here! You would be like that Spaniard who being well would be better.”
“I hope for nothing better; I believe in nothing better in the world, my good Maria.”
“One day you will repent it. And poor Pedro! My God! why has this earthquake fallen on us?”
Don Modesto entered. For some time his visits had been very rare, not but the duke would have received him most amiably, nor but that his lordship would have exercised on him the same irresistible attraction which was felt by all who approached him, but Modesto was the slave of ceremony, and he imposed upon himself the rule not to present himself before the duke, general, and ex-minister of war, but in grand and rigorous ceremony.
Rosa Mistica had told him that his grand uniform could not stand active service, and this was the cause of the suspension of his visits. When Maria learned that the duke contemplated to depart in two days, Don Modesto retired immediately. He had formed a project, and he required time to realize it.
When Marisalada announced to her father the resolution she had taken to follow the advice of the duke, the grief which attacked the poor old Pedro would have softened a heart of stone.
He listened silently to the magnificent plans of his child, without either condemning or approving them; to her promises to revisit him in his cabin, he neither made request nor refusal. He regarded his child as a bird regards her offspring, when they try to quit the nest which they may never again enter. In one word, this excellent father wept in secret.